The Bitter Aftertaste

As long as they were yoked to the same desperation effort, the factions in Britain's Labor Party could think of little else but saving the pound. Now, along with devaluation's bitter, month-long aftertaste, a paroxysm of family infighting has broken out, presenting Prime Minister Harold Wilson with the first serious threat to his leadership in his three-year term in office. Labor's left wing is just spoiling for a squabble over proposals for sharp new spending cuts, expected next month. So defiant and independent have some of Labor's ministers grown, said the Sunday Telegraph, that what Britain now has is Cabinet rather than prime ministerial government.

A crisis of authority was caused last week by an issue that Harold Wilson quickly grasped--if he did not pump it up on purpose--in order to reassert his party command. South Africa, it seemed, wanted to buy -L-200 million worth of arms, and could Britain please forget its three-year-old support of the U.N. embargo to sell them? It appeared that there could scarcely be an easier way of uniting all Labor than giving it a chance to say no to the Vorster apartheid regime. But at least five ministers, led by Foreign Secretary George Brown, declined to go along with Wilson's decision to do just that, claiming that 1) Britain could hardly turn down -L-200 million worth of export business from its second largest customer in the face of mounting balance-of-payments deficits, and 2) it is bogus morality to pass up income, even from arms traffic, while at the same time cutting into Labor's backbone social programs.*

Wilson was clearly shaken by the challenge, but in a head-cracking emergency Cabinet meeting, he managed to force his will. He then assured Com mons, while Brown sat in a sullen, cross-armed slouch, that he had backing "as a whole" against the arms sales. The rumors continued that Brown, whose rambunctious social behavior has never seemed to bother Wilson, was not long for the Cabinet, even though such a move would split the party down the middle. Wilson's political stock also waned when he prearranged parliamentary support for continuing the ban--the first time in recent memory that a Prime Minister has gone over the Cabinet's head for "backbench" allies.

Rough Winter Ahead. Labor's left is due for its share of blows. Wilson darkly forecast "sacrifices of certain ideological considerations" as well as economic hardships in the forthcoming austerity program. That almost certainly means more cuts in military expenditures, but definitely hints at a trimming of many social welfare pets, including, perhaps, the restoration of a fee for prescription drugs, long a Labor shibboleth. In a mood of defiance, 30 Laborites fired off a warning "making it clear that we do not think it is necessary to cut social services." This attitude practically guarantees a rough winter ahead in Parliament.

As he prepared to leave for Australian Prime Minister Holt's memorial service at week's end, Wilson could find little comfort in developments outside his party either. As expected, France barred Britain from even beginning negotiations about joining the Common Market, though Foreign Minister Couve de Murville withheld a knockout punch by signing a communique guaranteeing that none of the six member nations objected "in principle" to Britain's eventual entry. And Gallup is becoming nearly as much of a bother to Wilson as De Gaulle. The latest poll showed that only 32% of the voters would return Labor to power--the lowest rating ever registered by a postwar government.

*Another important argument: that South Africa may be disqualified from Western defense if the arms embargo continues. For new standardized weaponry, the Vorster government will probably turn to France (it might even try Russia), whose hardware is not familiar in the Atlantic Alliance.

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